10 ms·

What the heck is going on at Apple?

148 points by methuselah_in 11mo ago

markus_zhang 11mo ago
> Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, who is joining Meta as its chief design officer. I wonder if he is responsible for all those niceties MacOS got for the last 10 or so years. Like the scroll bars in Serious Sam Mental difficulty, or the flat earth flavour icons, you know.
- randycupertino 11mo ago
  He created liquid glass, the much ballyhood but controversial new ios 26 update. Marketed like "magic" but mainly just visual updates that are buggy, drain battery and make things hard to read. Wonder if they'll keep supporting/pushing it.
  - markus_zhang 11mo ago
    Ah, another blessing I get to enjoy due to forced update policy from our IT department.
  - nine_k 11mo ago
    Feature request: a Dye Injector in the Control Panel that allows to add a tint to Liquid Glass, all the way to 100% opaque if desired. (Unscientific fiction, I know.)
    - beAbU 11mo ago
      Ironically this was a feature in Windows 7.
    - DonHopkins 11mo ago
      They'll virtualize the ink jet printer ink model: Totally Transparent Liquid Glass UI is free, DRM'ed dye is an in-app purchase that fades over time, or subscription that you don't actually own. User defined colors not possible, only expensive premium licensed Pantone, Disney Princess Pink, Barbie Pink, Tiffany Blue, Coca Cola Red, Cadbury Purple, UPS Brown, Target Red, Home Depot Orange, John Deere Green & Yellow, Vantablack, Stuart Semple Black 2.0, 3.0, etc.
  - sharts 11mo ago
    It’s so weird that such a role could even have been allowed to be held by such a halfwit. How dies that even happen?
    - TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago
      He arrived from the world of fashion with Watch, and somehow that gave him enough cachet at the top to entrench an extended nonsense career. Looking forward to his tenure at Meta. With any luck he'll kill the company.
      - DonHopkins 11mo ago
        Gruber: Apple employees ‘giddy’ about Alan Dye’s departure https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-about-alan-dyes-departure/ https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-... Bad Dye Job https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job >The sentiment within the ranks at Apple is that today’s news is almost too good to be true. People had given up hope that Dye would ever get squeezed out, and no one expected that he’d just up and leave on his own. [...] >It’s rather extraordinary in today’s hyper-partisan world that there’s nearly universal agreement amongst actual practitioners of user-interface design that Alan Dye is a fraud who led the company deeply astray. It was a big problem inside the company too. I’m aware of dozens of designers who’ve left Apple, out of frustration over the company’s direction, to work at places like LoveFrom, OpenAI, and their secretive joint venture io. I’m not sure there are any interaction designers at io who aren’t ex-Apple, and if there are, it’s only a handful. From the stories I’m aware of, the theme is identical: these are designers driven to do great work, and under Alan Dye, “doing great work” was no longer the guiding principle at Apple. [...] >That alone will be a win for everyone — even though the change was seemingly driven by Mark Zuckerberg’s desire to poach Dye, not Tim Cook and Apple’s senior leadership realizing they should have shitcanned him long ago. [...] >My favorite reaction to today’s news is this one-liner from a guy on Twitter/X: “The average IQ of both companies has increased.” https://x.com/8hipulin/status/1996318006335401997 https://x.com/8hipulin/status/1996318006335401997 "Dye [...] get[ting] squeezed out" of Apple is such vividly technicolor imagery! I too hope he makes Meta curl up and dye.
- npodbielski 11mo ago
  > Like the scroll bars in Serious Sam Mental difficulty, or the flat earth flavour icons, you know. You mean they invisible? Also I had fun playing mental. Finished FE on it ;)
  - markus_zhang 11mo ago
    Damn I can’t even beat normal. I kept dying :/ Then I watched someone doing a long play on Serious and I think that’s a superman.
    - npodbielski 10mo ago
      Mental is actually easier than serious because monster are exactly like in Hard but just invisible from time to time. But they movement are easy to predict because they mostly run in straight lines ;)
- apple4ever 11mo ago
  He absolutely was responsible for all the bad UI introduced over the last 10 years. Nobody said no to them.
- karmakaze 11mo ago
  I don't know if it's only because he left, but there are stories about how bad he was in his position for such a long time. If that's true, Apple must be blamed for keeping him there--until he voluntarily left. WTF?
  - markus_zhang 11mo ago
    TBH I don’t know much about the Mac eco except that I have been using a couple of MacBook Pro for work for the recent 5 years. My humble experience says hardware is easy but software is hard. Might be counterintuitive but that’s honestly what I felt.
    - TheNewsIsHere 11mo ago
      With hardware there are only so many sanely quantifiable ways someone might use, abuse, or hack up your product. And you don’t have to care about some or all of them. Someone might desolder an Apple silicon chip successfully and do something neat with it, but they’re unlikely to use it to power an MRI machine. But software - even inside the business that makes an application people will still find entirely surprising, realistically unpredictable ways to use it. Let alone the customers/users/tinkerers. At a former place I worked we had one customer who was smart enough to be technically correct about how our software worked to use it in the most insane manner any of us had seen, and which no one had ever contemplated. Not even in a way that was sane to test manually or with automation. (I’m being a bit vague because it’d be very identifiable broadly and specifically.) Eventually we had to say “yes you can use it this way, but you’d end up paying far more than you should and the experience is going to be awful.” (Even sales agreed on the former!)
- terribleperson 11mo ago
  I wonder if the already-bad Horizon OS will get worse now.
w-m 11mo ago
Apple acquires OpenAI, Sam becomes CEO of combined company; iPhone revenue used to build out data centers; Jony rehired as design chief for AI device.
- ares623 11mo ago
  I hate that this sounds plausible
  - quesera 11mo ago
    I'm more in the "Not in a million years" camp on this one. :)
- alhirzel 11mo ago
  > Apple acquires OpenAI, Sam becomes CEO of combined company; iPhone revenue used to build out data centers; Jony rehired as design chief for AI device. Wonder what to call this brand of fanfic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction
  - rchaud 11mo ago
    Stratechery 2.0
- flenserboy 11mo ago
  the worst possible future for Apple, & perhaps for us all.
- swivelmaster 11mo ago
  This is so insanely terrible that I’m going to put my phone down now and go do something else.
hn_throwaway_99 11mo ago
Insofar as this article is about the 4 execs leaving Apple, this is a total non-story and the "What the heck is going on at Apple" is just click bait: - Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, and general counsel Kate Adams, are set to retire. While these may be high level execs, they don't really have much to do with the overall direction and success of the company. And given the change in the political environment you've seen tons of changes in roles like these at many companies in the past 11 months. - Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, is leaving to join Meta as its chief design officer. Sounds like he won't really be missed: https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-about-alan-dyes-departure/ https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-.... Assuming he was responsible for Liquid Glass, I say good riddance. - John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, is also retiring. He had basically already been demoted, taken off leading Siri due to Siri's competitive failures. So yeah, it's pretty obvious that Apple is behind the AI wave, but honestly, they may end up having the last laugh given how much backlash there is from consumers about trying to shoehorn AI into all these places where it's just an annoyance.
- randycupertino 11mo ago
  There's more than just 4 execs and imo an unprecedented level of turnover for a historically very stable company. It’s multiple senior leaders across legal, policy, AI, design, hardware, and operations leaving within a short period, making it one of Apple’s most significant leadership shakeups in years, which is why several outlets are finding it newsworthy. 1) John Giannandrea, Senior VP of Machine Learning & AI Strategy, Apple’s AI chief is leaving in 2026 after setbacks with Siri, his entire team is being reorganized and cut. 2) Alan Dye, VP of Design and responsible for liquid glass left for Meta Bloomberg 3) Kate Adams, the top lawyer and general counsel is leaving 4) Lisa Jackson, VP of Policy & Social Initiatives also leaving 5) Johny Srouji, hardware/chip head, said he is "seriously considering leaving" which is really interesting seeing as he actually said that out loud for press to report on. 6) Jeff Williams, COO retired 7) Luca Maestri the CFO left ealier this year 8) Ruoming Pang the AI foundation leader left for Meta 9) Ke Yang, head of Siri search also left for Meta. A lot of other AI engineers have also left.
lagniappe 11mo ago
A tweet I saw earlier: Mark Gurman @markgurman BREAKING: Apple’s chip chief Johny Srouji informed CEO Tim Cook he is seriously considering leaving the company and would likely continue his career elsewhere rather than retire. Apple is urgently pushing to keep him. He remains at least for now. Tweet source: https://x.com/markgurman/status/1997352821453447399 https://x.com/markgurman/status/1997352821453447399 Article source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-06/apple-rocked-by-executive-departures-with-johny-srouji-at-risk-of-leaving-next https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-06/apple-roc...
- apple4ever 11mo ago
  It's all crashing down around Cook. He could've chosen to actually be good to Apple customers. Instead, he milked them with ridiculous app store policies and terrible software. Yes the hardware was good, but those two things destroyed so much good will.
deleted 11mo ago
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827a 11mo ago
IMO: Cook is going to announce his retirement by the end of Q1, they've already selected a CEO (probably Ternus), the incoming CEO wants leadership change, and some of these departures are because its better that this purge happens before the CEO change than after. I think this explains Giannandrea, Williams, and Jackson. Dye may have also been involved in that, given how unpopular he was internally at Apple. But more likely just personal / Meta offered him a billion dollars. Maestri leaving was also probably totally uninvolved. Srouji is the weirdest case, and I'm hesitant to believe its even true just given its a rumor at this point. Its possible he was angry about being passed over for CEO, but realistically, it was always going to be Ternus, Williams, or Federighi. If Ternus is the next CEO, its likely we'll see Apple combine the Hardware Technologies and Hardware Engineering divisions, then have Srouji lead both of them. I really do not see him leaving the company. The other less probable theory is that they actually picked Fadell, and this deeply pissed off many people in Apple's senior leadership. So, what we're seeing is more chaos than it first seems. Generally, as long as Srouji doesn't leave, these changes feel positive for Apple, and especially if there's a CEO change in early 2026: This is what "the fifth generation of Apple Inc" looks like. I don't understand the mindset of people who complain about Apple's products and behavior over the past decade, then don't receive this news as directionally positive.
- apple4ever 11mo ago
  Great points, this is indicative of something going on. And this point is especially spot on: > I don't understand the mindset of people who complain about Apple's products and behavior over the past decade, then don't receive this news as directionally positive. It's time for change. Maybe it won't get better, but I do hope it will.
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    True. Cook was a great money maker but he's so boring on the product side. But they'll never get anyone even close to Jobs obviously. Just won't happen. Even if they find someone with the same attention to detail and "risk it all on a grand vision" mentality, he or she won't get the trust of the board who are generally risk-averse. The only reason Jobs got away with doing all that was that he was Mr. Apple. He was the company. Hopefully they'll get someone closer to that but the magic will never come back IMO.
hilsdev 11mo ago
Anecdotal but I was talking to a recruiter about a role in Apple last week, and then was told they are doing a total hiring freeze until at least the new year. There was also a bit of a shakeup in one of their teams for video content production a few months back which surprised me. Not anyone that would get a tech journal article written about them, but someone who was very experienced, knowledgeable, and loved his role. Nothing newsworthy just sounds more rocky than usual for Apple
ChrisArchitect 11mo ago
Related: Apple Rocked by Executive Departures, with Chip Chief at Risk of Leaving Next https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175205 John Giannandrea to retire from Apple https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114122 Apple Design Official Alan Dye Poached by Meta in Major Coup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46142843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46142843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139145
jaredcwhite 11mo ago
Poor analysis. Apple is doing quite well as a Big Tech company that simply doesn't need to "pivot to AI" like everyone else. Their missteps in "Apple Intelligence" have in fact demonstrated that they don't actually need to have much of a "strategy" here at all. In fact, if they simply link out to other people's chatbots and make it totally opt-in, that would be ideal. The much bigger problem is that they've lost the wow factor in their software design, and in some regards the hardware as well even though the internals and build quality has never been better. Apple needs a design shakeup far more than it needs anything to do with AI, a poison pill which will bring the entire industry down in 2026.
- TheNewsIsHere 11mo ago
  I have intentionally withheld updating my daily drivers to iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass. But if I had to pick between two evils - diminishing UX quality and shoving AI into every corner where no one asked for it - I’d still pick Liquid Glass.
  - bitwize 11mo ago
    Work is talking about upgrading our Macs to macOS 26. I'm holding off for now.
  - whyenot 11mo ago
    26.2 is looking a lot less glassy. If you want to avoid the glass, I’d wait for its full release.
  - jjice 11mo ago
    The Apple Intelligence features are some of the more subtle ones overall compared to other companies like Google and Microsoft IMO
    - bigyabai 11mo ago
      I've used macOS these days, give them a few years and they'll "catch up" I'm certain.
more_corn 11mo ago
Maybe Tim Apple has cancer and his search for a successor is causing a bit of a leadership shuffle.
- jjtheblunt 11mo ago
  Or maybe not and Cook and Williams are in their 60s and want to be retired, Giannandrea (sp?) was overpaid enormously but didn't create any magic, Dye is a longtime Apple person who had incredible luck but is frankly fungible (bring back Evans Hankey, for instance). Srouji is a special personality and talent, though.
mostlysimilar 11mo ago
> Amar Subramanya, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of AI, will be Apple’s new vice president of AI. That doesn't bode well. The last thing I want from macOS is Windows-like overbearing insistence on AI everything.
- bombcar 11mo ago
  He’s really a Google guy, spent about half a minute at Microsoft.
torben-friis 11mo ago
>as critics say Apple, once a tech leader, is behind in the next big wave: artificial intelligence. Most critics I see deal with the fact that they’re fad chasing and delivering without their flagship polish (for both new products and updates). This narrative is likely to push apple deeper into the well if it becomes the mainstream spin.
- phantasmish 11mo ago
  As someone who has Apple-everything (just about) and has since 2013 or so, every time I see a headline about Apple being in serious trouble over their “AI failure” I can’t even understand what they’re talking about. Nothing I’ve seen yet is compelling enough I need it in my OS. People can reach Chatgpt on the iPhones just fine. Who cares? Who are these people like “idk might switch to Windows because of Apple’s failed AI strategy” making this an actual problem? I’ve never even understood what their supposed strategy was trying to do (at which it evidently failed? How did it fail? I also don’t follow that.)
  - gldrk 11mo ago
    >Who are these people like “idk might switch to Windows because of Apple’s failed AI strategy” making this an actual problem? It’s not about users but about investors who rely on the greater fool theory. If Apple is not adopting the current thing, people won’t FOMO in, so it’s better to buy other stock.
  - Barrin92 11mo ago
    >Nothing I’ve seen yet is compelling enough I need it in my OS I'd put it more strongly, as someone who hasn't bought an Apple device in over a decade, I have contemplated buying one now because it seems to be the only way to escape the enslopification. Them being behind on this crap is an active selling point for me
  - deleted 11mo ago
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  - doix 11mo ago
    > Who are these people like “idk might switch to Windows because of Apple’s failed AI strategy” making this an actual problem? If anything, I know people that are getting pissed off about all the AI stuff in windows and are considering switching.
iqandjoke 11mo ago
Apple: (From Investors' twisted view) Not lagging behind, but prudently?? Spent less on AI which is wise OpenAI: Code Red
skeeter2020 11mo ago
3 retirements and a VP taking an obvious promotion at Meta: not really the "sky is falling" event they try to paint. Tim Cook stepping down would (if it even happens) be a big deal, but he's not the heart of the company. He's been an extremely compentent accountant; enjoy your retirement party and gold watch. And to suggest they are falling behind because they're not investing hundreds of billions in an AI "strategy" that shows no pay-off - while the other tech companies start to scale back their capital investments? I've never been a huge Apple fan as a company but their current situation makes me more bullish than ever.
- an0malous 11mo ago
  Yeah it seems pretty obvious that we’re in the mainframe era of transformer models and we’ll soon transition to the personal computer era where these all run on your device, which Apple stands to benefit from the most. Their FoundationModels are actually pretty good at certain tasks
  - Hammershaft 11mo ago
    I don't think that's obvious. The marginal return on additional units of compute seems to fall pretty quickly for the vast majority of applications, which increases the benefit of decentralization over the cost of reduced compute. It isn't clear the same is true of intelligence.
- tptacek 11mo ago
  There also seems to be a general vibe of cheerfulness among Apple fans about Dye's departure.
  - trueno 11mo ago
    i don't really care about dye (or liquid glass) but i do feel like it's an alarm of sorts that Srouji stated he'd probably take off without tim cook at the helm. I dunno what that signals, i'm less inclined to think it's a "i just really like tim, man" and more of a "this incoming leadership can get bent". Apple also just picked up the meta lady that helped draft the patriot act. i dunno. What remains to be seen is whether or not Apple maintains its core tenets or if they start slipping on things like privacy, ads, and forcing AI in everyone's face. They undoubtedly leave a buttload of money on the table never pursuing these things. whole shakeup feels like it was driven by wall street earlier in the year, there were headlines about apple being in serious trouble for missing out on AI. I dunno feels like some game of thrones opportunism within apple leadership just played out. apple fans are dorks in that they think such a shakeup is in response to liquid glass and the iphone air being a boring phone. i like apple devices, this is kinda freaky i can't lie. it would actually suck if their chip division started stalling if srouji bounces, it would suck infinitely more if a new leadership was here to redefine apple values and suddenly we have a proverbial apple version of satya nadella at the helm who's here to blast you with ads and subscriptions and forced AI.
OhioMan2943 11mo ago
Isn't it obvious- we're hitting the limit of metrics of modern success/ end of this style of innovation- and are too uninventive to find new ones
jackvalentine 11mo ago
I don’t care that they’re behind on AI, I care that they’ve decided to throw UX out the window so all my devices are just a little bit worse to use than they were 12 months ago.
deleted 11mo ago
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dustbunny 11mo ago
When I lived in a different country, I could read as much cnn as I wanted. Now that I live in the USA, I need a subscription. So I am less informed on us politics now that I live in the USA. Ironic.
JSR_FDED 11mo ago
This is nothing, or at minimum a good thing. The people responsible for terrible UI and AI have gone.
mr_windfrog 11mo ago
Apple's ecosystem and business model are still rock solid. A few senior execs leaving is just a normal shake-up, not a crisis. Hardware's top-notch, and hopefully this opens the door for better UI and AI without messing with what already works.
tzury 11mo ago
I don't think this entire piece taught me anything new other than a speculation that "speculation is mounting that Tim Cook may be preparing to step aside as CEO" -- "speculation". "may be". "preparing". The lagging behind the AI wave is known, and matter of fact, the "Liquid Glass" saga is not even mentioned while they focus on the Apple Vision glasses. This is a great model for the poor low quality of journalism that became industry standard nowadays. Yes, apple direction is questionable, and while it is mainly questionable because the of AI wave, well, the entire AI wave is questionable nowadays. one more thing, the URL path has "/apple-tim-cook-leadership-changes" in it, suggests the title "what the heck" is most likely a newer version than the original one which they decided not to publish as is since it is not based enough. Bottom line: The template is: * [company] + [AI] + [speculation] + [analyst quote about urgency]. It produces volume, not insight.
3oil3 11mo ago
There were a lot of non-optimal decisions, and statements were out of reality. The macPro is not the best. The M3 slower. A.I. acronym opportunity could have been leveraged differently. A mac is supposed to be comfortable, macOS 26 "Da hoe" initially lacked various elements that were expected. The current state of logs/logging in macOS is a paradise for an adversary but time-hogging for legitimate user. Shareholders use macs, and they trust teams that studied Nokia. New emojis have a relatively inelastic relationship with sales.
- CyberDildonics 11mo ago
  Shareholders use macs, and they trust teams that studied Nokia. New emojis have a relatively inelastic relationship with sales. What does any of this mean?
  - 3oil3 11mo ago
    What did you understand? Shareholders use macs -> proportionaly feel the same frustration as other mac users. Trusting teams that studied Nokia -> Nokia was once the leader in mobiles, and quickly fell. Emojis -> how many new emojis were added are usually indicated along the other, top, features.
    - astrange 11mo ago
      New emojis motivate people to install security updates.
  - dagmx 11mo ago
    I’ve tried reading this a few times and it seems like a stream of consciousness word salad?
    - 3oil3 11mo ago
      It lost the formatting, I meant it as a list of what out-of-reality decisions led to. I mean the macPro sux, when the macbookproM3 came out it was slower than the previous mode. I meant that 'Apple-Inteligence' sux, that macOS26 doesn't help working better. That opening console on a fresh macOS can show thousands of entries per second and that entries like "User <private> result: <private>" are not helpful. That what happened to Nokia can happen to Iphones, and finally that listing emojis among top features is yet out-of-reality. And I didnt mention the vision pro because I wanted to make a joke about it, in case someone said I forgot that on my list.
protocolture 11mo ago
Windows 11 25H2 introduces several exciting new AI features. Its also being reported as a massive memory hog and its causing a lot of consternation online. There's no reason to be a first mover on AI. There's still no moat, and it is unlikely one will be found. A computer firm we have never heard of could spin up tomorrow and be the true leader of the much prophesied AI Revolution. Apple can let other people burn their brands to the ground chasing the dream. Colloquially, 2025 is the year of the linux desktop, thanks in part to Microsofts AI approach (And valve opening up games). In 10 years the ramifications of that might even be felt in enterprise. We could have enterprise users looking for Linux/MacOS clients to run Microsoft Office 365. Really one should be asking why Microsoft thinks it can ruin the client experience. "What the heck is going on at Microsoft". We know whats going on, no one in the upper echelons of Microsoft can be seen to ignore the next big thing. They are compelled to grasp at anything labelled AI and ship it. I dont like Apple, at all really. But not going all in on AI is to be lauded. In fact they could have done even less. Consumers want them to release the next iBrick with another 200 dollars attached to the pricetag. Thats it. They can meet consumer expectations by doing nothing other than Business as Usual.
kyledrake 11mo ago
Why does Apple need a different AI strategy? They make good laptops and people like them (I say this as someone that runs Linux on a framework laptop). Anyone using AI is using their MacBook laptops to use AI already. They're perfectly capable of running LLMs locally if anyone actually wants to do that. I'm not sure shoving a bunch of weird AI crap into the UI is actually what end users want.
- jhancock 11mo ago
  Because shareholders want "number go up". Would be nice to know why Apple didn't throw its war chest at the WarnerBros/HBO acquisition Netflix just did.
  - Marsymars 11mo ago
    I’d guess a matter of control - Apple wants full control of the products and services that it owns and maintains - buying WB/HBO comes with a bunch of baggage around IP stewardship, international contracts around IP that restrict Apple in ways they’d never do with their own content, a ton of employees outside of the Apple corporate structure, etc.
crispyapple 11mo ago
Do they make Silicon Valley employee collector cards yet?
- DonHopkins 10mo ago
  Suck.com Net Moguls, from back in the day (art by Jay Bevenour, edited by Carl Steadman): https://web.archive.org/web/20181211075708/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/ https://web.archive.org/web/20181211075708/http://www.suck.c... Steve Jobs (front): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115101im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/96/11/15/cardfront.jpeg https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115101im_/http://www.suc... Steve Jobs (back): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143431im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/96/11/15/cardback.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143431im_/http://www.suc... Gil Amelio (front): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115107im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/97/03/14/cardfront.jpeg https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115107im_/http://www.suc... Gil Amelio (back): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143436im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/97/03/14/cardback.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143436im_/http://www.suc... About Suck.com: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suck.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suck.com
HacklesRaised 11mo ago
Only Srouji would be a real loss. Not that they wouldn't feel the loss of the others, but more of a 'never mind' than an 'oh no'.
joduplessis 11mo ago
This is 100% needed, I'm sorry to say. Apple's hardware game has never been stronger - but software-wise they seem to be wandering around aimlessly. MacOS26 feels like a huge step back, so I'm hoping some fresh people will be a good thing.
ggm 11mo ago
Anyone recall IBM of the mainframe pre-PC days, and how different it was compared to post-redhat acquisition? If you'd told me in 1987 DEC was going to disappear up it's own fundament and be absorbed by Compaq, and then HP I would have laughed you off the floor. Or Sun be Oracle. And then Oracle try to morph into hyperscaler, and sort-of.. well existing Oracle customers aside, .. fail? Companies change. Nintendo was a 19th century playing card manufacturer. Kodak was a very innovative Photography related enterprise. Xerox invented the workstation. So tell me where Xerox is now? "Xerox Holdings"
- SoftTalker 11mo ago
  Yeah I don't think Apple will ever be an AI company. It's just not in their DNA. They do consumer computers. It's all they've ever really been good at. When they stray very far from that it doesn't go well.
- astrange 11mo ago
  > Nintendo was a 19th century playing card manufacturer. Still is one, just does other things too.
beloch 11mo ago
>The changes come as critics say Apple, once a tech leader, is behind in the next big wave: artificial intelligence. It might pay off to be a contrarian on AI or, at least, to appear that way. MS is currently facing significant user backlash against the AI components of Windows 11. Some of their own engineers have ripped management for forcing AI that's in a very poor state into every pore of the company's products while fixing that AI is verboten to all MS employees but the AI dept.[1]. Google is featuring frequently wrong AI summaries at the top of every search result. Elon Musk is using Grok to create his own version of reality in the form of Grokipedia, making billionaires everywhere look that much more like moustache-twirling villains. Even if you think LLM's have some solid applications and potential for growth, the way it's being pushed on average users is truly cringe-worthy. To make matters worse, there is broad public perception that AI is putting people out of work, ripping off artists, etc.. It might actually benefit a company like Apple to not feature AI prominently in their products, even if they do spend the resources to catch up. Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Apple fanboy trying to recast Apple being behind in AI into genius. I parted ways with Apple products over a decade ago due to bad experiences that I don't care to repeat. I'm just saying there could be an emerging niche for them to exploit. Being the one and only mainstream PC company that doesn't shove AI down people's throats could be a real competitive edge in 2026 and beyond. [1]https://jonready.com/blog/posts/everyone-in-seattle-hates-ai.html https://jonready.com/blog/posts/everyone-in-seattle-hates-ai...
HardCodedBias 11mo ago
Unless: 1) LLM advances stop 2) The Chinese companies release open source/weight models which are as good or better than the West 3) Apple somehow turns it around with AI Apple is done for. AI is going to be central to the next generation of phones and the next form factor. Their complete failure on AI has been ... shocking. Not sure if they don't have the data to train a leading edge model or if they have some kind of personele issue, it has just been shocking to see their lack of progress. No doubt Apple has rested on their laurels for a long time. I just would not have expected this.
pjmlp 11mo ago
In some ways it feels like the old 1990's Apple, except now they have enough money for all the misteps, and can survive being the iDevices company, which is where all that money is coming from. The Computer Company, not sure.
fmajid 11mo ago
They treat the departure of Alan Dye as a negative for Apple rather than the unalloyed win it is. That tells you everything you need to know about the credibility of the article.
OddMerlin 10mo ago
I recently purchased an iPad Air and am blown away at how bad the UX is. Notes is incredibly buggy, the iOS is not optimized for the pencil pro (seems like it delivers very little value outside of visual arts programs), the Siri +gpt experience is laughable, and I can go on… I’m a long time Apple user and I’m concerned with the state of things. Im considering returning this piece of junk.
- SwtCyber 10mo ago
  The iPad line in particular feels like the part of Apple's ecosystem that hasn't figured out what it wants to be
- seec 10mo ago
  Now that there are plenty of Chinese tablets that are excellent for the primary use case (media consumption) at a very good price for the hardware quality, iPads are definitely overpriced. And the "Pro" lineup fails to be a true laptop replacement. People buy them for the “cachet” or out of habit, but I think the situation is much worse than people think. The built-in obsolescence via software deprecation is also starting to bite them in the ass. If you cannot expect the tablet to last more than 6 years, there isn't much reason to buy Apple, considering competitors quality/performance is more than enough.
kotaKat 10mo ago
Maybe Apple should have focused more time onto the software and hardware and stopped trying so hard to be a media studio. Nobody asked for Ted Lasso, but a lot of us asked for Siri to do a little more than set a damn timer.
SwtCyber 10mo ago
Apple usually manages succession quietly and years in advance... seeing multiple senior people leave in the middle of an industry platform shift is unusual for a company that's spent two decades projecting stability

148 points by methuselah_in 11mo ago

> Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, who is joining Meta as its chief design officer. I wonder if he is responsible for all those niceties MacOS got for the last 10 or so years. Like the scroll bars in Serious Sam Mental difficulty, or the flat earth flavour icons, you know.

randycupertino 11mo ago
He created liquid glass, the much ballyhood but controversial new ios 26 update. Marketed like "magic" but mainly just visual updates that are buggy, drain battery and make things hard to read. Wonder if they'll keep supporting/pushing it.
- markus_zhang 11mo ago
  Ah, another blessing I get to enjoy due to forced update policy from our IT department.
- nine_k 11mo ago
  Feature request: a Dye Injector in the Control Panel that allows to add a tint to Liquid Glass, all the way to 100% opaque if desired. (Unscientific fiction, I know.)
  - beAbU 11mo ago
    Ironically this was a feature in Windows 7.
  - DonHopkins 11mo ago
    They'll virtualize the ink jet printer ink model: Totally Transparent Liquid Glass UI is free, DRM'ed dye is an in-app purchase that fades over time, or subscription that you don't actually own. User defined colors not possible, only expensive premium licensed Pantone, Disney Princess Pink, Barbie Pink, Tiffany Blue, Coca Cola Red, Cadbury Purple, UPS Brown, Target Red, Home Depot Orange, John Deere Green & Yellow, Vantablack, Stuart Semple Black 2.0, 3.0, etc.
- sharts 11mo ago
  It’s so weird that such a role could even have been allowed to be held by such a halfwit. How dies that even happen?
  - TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago
    He arrived from the world of fashion with Watch, and somehow that gave him enough cachet at the top to entrench an extended nonsense career. Looking forward to his tenure at Meta. With any luck he'll kill the company.
    - DonHopkins 11mo ago
      Gruber: Apple employees ‘giddy’ about Alan Dye’s departure https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-about-alan-dyes-departure/ https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-... Bad Dye Job https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job >The sentiment within the ranks at Apple is that today’s news is almost too good to be true. People had given up hope that Dye would ever get squeezed out, and no one expected that he’d just up and leave on his own. [...] >It’s rather extraordinary in today’s hyper-partisan world that there’s nearly universal agreement amongst actual practitioners of user-interface design that Alan Dye is a fraud who led the company deeply astray. It was a big problem inside the company too. I’m aware of dozens of designers who’ve left Apple, out of frustration over the company’s direction, to work at places like LoveFrom, OpenAI, and their secretive joint venture io. I’m not sure there are any interaction designers at io who aren’t ex-Apple, and if there are, it’s only a handful. From the stories I’m aware of, the theme is identical: these are designers driven to do great work, and under Alan Dye, “doing great work” was no longer the guiding principle at Apple. [...] >That alone will be a win for everyone — even though the change was seemingly driven by Mark Zuckerberg’s desire to poach Dye, not Tim Cook and Apple’s senior leadership realizing they should have shitcanned him long ago. [...] >My favorite reaction to today’s news is this one-liner from a guy on Twitter/X: “The average IQ of both companies has increased.” https://x.com/8hipulin/status/1996318006335401997 https://x.com/8hipulin/status/1996318006335401997 "Dye [...] get[ting] squeezed out" of Apple is such vividly technicolor imagery! I too hope he makes Meta curl up and dye.
npodbielski 11mo ago
> Like the scroll bars in Serious Sam Mental difficulty, or the flat earth flavour icons, you know. You mean they invisible? Also I had fun playing mental. Finished FE on it ;)
- markus_zhang 11mo ago
  Damn I can’t even beat normal. I kept dying :/ Then I watched someone doing a long play on Serious and I think that’s a superman.
  - npodbielski 10mo ago
    Mental is actually easier than serious because monster are exactly like in Hard but just invisible from time to time. But they movement are easy to predict because they mostly run in straight lines ;)
apple4ever 11mo ago
He absolutely was responsible for all the bad UI introduced over the last 10 years. Nobody said no to them.
karmakaze 11mo ago
I don't know if it's only because he left, but there are stories about how bad he was in his position for such a long time. If that's true, Apple must be blamed for keeping him there--until he voluntarily left. WTF?
- markus_zhang 11mo ago
  TBH I don’t know much about the Mac eco except that I have been using a couple of MacBook Pro for work for the recent 5 years. My humble experience says hardware is easy but software is hard. Might be counterintuitive but that’s honestly what I felt.
  - TheNewsIsHere 11mo ago
    With hardware there are only so many sanely quantifiable ways someone might use, abuse, or hack up your product. And you don’t have to care about some or all of them. Someone might desolder an Apple silicon chip successfully and do something neat with it, but they’re unlikely to use it to power an MRI machine. But software - even inside the business that makes an application people will still find entirely surprising, realistically unpredictable ways to use it. Let alone the customers/users/tinkerers. At a former place I worked we had one customer who was smart enough to be technically correct about how our software worked to use it in the most insane manner any of us had seen, and which no one had ever contemplated. Not even in a way that was sane to test manually or with automation. (I’m being a bit vague because it’d be very identifiable broadly and specifically.) Eventually we had to say “yes you can use it this way, but you’d end up paying far more than you should and the experience is going to be awful.” (Even sales agreed on the former!)
terribleperson 11mo ago
I wonder if the already-bad Horizon OS will get worse now.

w-m 11mo ago

Apple acquires OpenAI, Sam becomes CEO of combined company; iPhone revenue used to build out data centers; Jony rehired as design chief for AI device.

ares623 11mo ago
I hate that this sounds plausible
- quesera 11mo ago
  I'm more in the "Not in a million years" camp on this one. :)
alhirzel 11mo ago
> Apple acquires OpenAI, Sam becomes CEO of combined company; iPhone revenue used to build out data centers; Jony rehired as design chief for AI device. Wonder what to call this brand of fanfic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction
- rchaud 11mo ago
  Stratechery 2.0
flenserboy 11mo ago
the worst possible future for Apple, & perhaps for us all.
swivelmaster 11mo ago
This is so insanely terrible that I’m going to put my phone down now and go do something else.

hn_throwaway_99 11mo ago

Insofar as this article is about the 4 execs leaving Apple, this is a total non-story and the "What the heck is going on at Apple" is just click bait: - Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, and general counsel Kate Adams, are set to retire. While these may be high level execs, they don't really have much to do with the overall direction and success of the company. And given the change in the political environment you've seen tons of changes in roles like these at many companies in the past 11 months. - Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, is leaving to join Meta as its chief design officer. Sounds like he won't really be missed: https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-about-alan-dyes-departure/ https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-.... Assuming he was responsible for Liquid Glass, I say good riddance. - John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, is also retiring. He had basically already been demoted, taken off leading Siri due to Siri's competitive failures. So yeah, it's pretty obvious that Apple is behind the AI wave, but honestly, they may end up having the last laugh given how much backlash there is from consumers about trying to shoehorn AI into all these places where it's just an annoyance.

randycupertino 11mo ago
There's more than just 4 execs and imo an unprecedented level of turnover for a historically very stable company. It’s multiple senior leaders across legal, policy, AI, design, hardware, and operations leaving within a short period, making it one of Apple’s most significant leadership shakeups in years, which is why several outlets are finding it newsworthy. 1) John Giannandrea, Senior VP of Machine Learning & AI Strategy, Apple’s AI chief is leaving in 2026 after setbacks with Siri, his entire team is being reorganized and cut. 2) Alan Dye, VP of Design and responsible for liquid glass left for Meta Bloomberg 3) Kate Adams, the top lawyer and general counsel is leaving 4) Lisa Jackson, VP of Policy & Social Initiatives also leaving 5) Johny Srouji, hardware/chip head, said he is "seriously considering leaving" which is really interesting seeing as he actually said that out loud for press to report on. 6) Jeff Williams, COO retired 7) Luca Maestri the CFO left ealier this year 8) Ruoming Pang the AI foundation leader left for Meta 9) Ke Yang, head of Siri search also left for Meta. A lot of other AI engineers have also left.

lagniappe 11mo ago

A tweet I saw earlier: Mark Gurman @markgurman BREAKING: Apple’s chip chief Johny Srouji informed CEO Tim Cook he is seriously considering leaving the company and would likely continue his career elsewhere rather than retire. Apple is urgently pushing to keep him. He remains at least for now. Tweet source: https://x.com/markgurman/status/1997352821453447399 https://x.com/markgurman/status/1997352821453447399 Article source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-06/apple-rocked-by-executive-departures-with-johny-srouji-at-risk-of-leaving-next https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-06/apple-roc...

apple4ever 11mo ago
It's all crashing down around Cook. He could've chosen to actually be good to Apple customers. Instead, he milked them with ridiculous app store policies and terrible software. Yes the hardware was good, but those two things destroyed so much good will.

deleted 11mo ago

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827a 11mo ago

IMO: Cook is going to announce his retirement by the end of Q1, they've already selected a CEO (probably Ternus), the incoming CEO wants leadership change, and some of these departures are because its better that this purge happens before the CEO change than after. I think this explains Giannandrea, Williams, and Jackson. Dye may have also been involved in that, given how unpopular he was internally at Apple. But more likely just personal / Meta offered him a billion dollars. Maestri leaving was also probably totally uninvolved. Srouji is the weirdest case, and I'm hesitant to believe its even true just given its a rumor at this point. Its possible he was angry about being passed over for CEO, but realistically, it was always going to be Ternus, Williams, or Federighi. If Ternus is the next CEO, its likely we'll see Apple combine the Hardware Technologies and Hardware Engineering divisions, then have Srouji lead both of them. I really do not see him leaving the company. The other less probable theory is that they actually picked Fadell, and this deeply pissed off many people in Apple's senior leadership. So, what we're seeing is more chaos than it first seems. Generally, as long as Srouji doesn't leave, these changes feel positive for Apple, and especially if there's a CEO change in early 2026: This is what "the fifth generation of Apple Inc" looks like. I don't understand the mindset of people who complain about Apple's products and behavior over the past decade, then don't receive this news as directionally positive.

apple4ever 11mo ago
Great points, this is indicative of something going on. And this point is especially spot on: > I don't understand the mindset of people who complain about Apple's products and behavior over the past decade, then don't receive this news as directionally positive. It's time for change. Maybe it won't get better, but I do hope it will.
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  True. Cook was a great money maker but he's so boring on the product side. But they'll never get anyone even close to Jobs obviously. Just won't happen. Even if they find someone with the same attention to detail and "risk it all on a grand vision" mentality, he or she won't get the trust of the board who are generally risk-averse. The only reason Jobs got away with doing all that was that he was Mr. Apple. He was the company. Hopefully they'll get someone closer to that but the magic will never come back IMO.

hilsdev 11mo ago

Anecdotal but I was talking to a recruiter about a role in Apple last week, and then was told they are doing a total hiring freeze until at least the new year. There was also a bit of a shakeup in one of their teams for video content production a few months back which surprised me. Not anyone that would get a tech journal article written about them, but someone who was very experienced, knowledgeable, and loved his role. Nothing newsworthy just sounds more rocky than usual for Apple

ChrisArchitect 11mo ago

Related: Apple Rocked by Executive Departures, with Chip Chief at Risk of Leaving Next https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46175205 John Giannandrea to retire from Apple https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46114122 Apple Design Official Alan Dye Poached by Meta in Major Coup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46142843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46142843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139145

jaredcwhite 11mo ago

Poor analysis. Apple is doing quite well as a Big Tech company that simply doesn't need to "pivot to AI" like everyone else. Their missteps in "Apple Intelligence" have in fact demonstrated that they don't actually need to have much of a "strategy" here at all. In fact, if they simply link out to other people's chatbots and make it totally opt-in, that would be ideal. The much bigger problem is that they've lost the wow factor in their software design, and in some regards the hardware as well even though the internals and build quality has never been better. Apple needs a design shakeup far more than it needs anything to do with AI, a poison pill which will bring the entire industry down in 2026.

TheNewsIsHere 11mo ago
I have intentionally withheld updating my daily drivers to iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass. But if I had to pick between two evils - diminishing UX quality and shoving AI into every corner where no one asked for it - I’d still pick Liquid Glass.
- bitwize 11mo ago
  Work is talking about upgrading our Macs to macOS 26. I'm holding off for now.
- whyenot 11mo ago
  26.2 is looking a lot less glassy. If you want to avoid the glass, I’d wait for its full release.
- jjice 11mo ago
  The Apple Intelligence features are some of the more subtle ones overall compared to other companies like Google and Microsoft IMO
  - bigyabai 11mo ago
    I've used macOS these days, give them a few years and they'll "catch up" I'm certain.

more_corn 11mo ago

Maybe Tim Apple has cancer and his search for a successor is causing a bit of a leadership shuffle.

jjtheblunt 11mo ago
Or maybe not and Cook and Williams are in their 60s and want to be retired, Giannandrea (sp?) was overpaid enormously but didn't create any magic, Dye is a longtime Apple person who had incredible luck but is frankly fungible (bring back Evans Hankey, for instance). Srouji is a special personality and talent, though.

mostlysimilar 11mo ago

> Amar Subramanya, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of AI, will be Apple’s new vice president of AI. That doesn't bode well. The last thing I want from macOS is Windows-like overbearing insistence on AI everything.

bombcar 11mo ago
He’s really a Google guy, spent about half a minute at Microsoft.

torben-friis 11mo ago

>as critics say Apple, once a tech leader, is behind in the next big wave: artificial intelligence. Most critics I see deal with the fact that they’re fad chasing and delivering without their flagship polish (for both new products and updates). This narrative is likely to push apple deeper into the well if it becomes the mainstream spin.

phantasmish 11mo ago
As someone who has Apple-everything (just about) and has since 2013 or so, every time I see a headline about Apple being in serious trouble over their “AI failure” I can’t even understand what they’re talking about. Nothing I’ve seen yet is compelling enough I need it in my OS. People can reach Chatgpt on the iPhones just fine. Who cares? Who are these people like “idk might switch to Windows because of Apple’s failed AI strategy” making this an actual problem? I’ve never even understood what their supposed strategy was trying to do (at which it evidently failed? How did it fail? I also don’t follow that.)
- gldrk 11mo ago
  >Who are these people like “idk might switch to Windows because of Apple’s failed AI strategy” making this an actual problem? It’s not about users but about investors who rely on the greater fool theory. If Apple is not adopting the current thing, people won’t FOMO in, so it’s better to buy other stock.
- Barrin92 11mo ago
  >Nothing I’ve seen yet is compelling enough I need it in my OS I'd put it more strongly, as someone who hasn't bought an Apple device in over a decade, I have contemplated buying one now because it seems to be the only way to escape the enslopification. Them being behind on this crap is an active selling point for me
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- doix 11mo ago
  > Who are these people like “idk might switch to Windows because of Apple’s failed AI strategy” making this an actual problem? If anything, I know people that are getting pissed off about all the AI stuff in windows and are considering switching.

iqandjoke 11mo ago

Apple: (From Investors' twisted view) Not lagging behind, but prudently?? Spent less on AI which is wise OpenAI: Code Red

skeeter2020 11mo ago

3 retirements and a VP taking an obvious promotion at Meta: not really the "sky is falling" event they try to paint. Tim Cook stepping down would (if it even happens) be a big deal, but he's not the heart of the company. He's been an extremely compentent accountant; enjoy your retirement party and gold watch. And to suggest they are falling behind because they're not investing hundreds of billions in an AI "strategy" that shows no pay-off - while the other tech companies start to scale back their capital investments? I've never been a huge Apple fan as a company but their current situation makes me more bullish than ever.

an0malous 11mo ago
Yeah it seems pretty obvious that we’re in the mainframe era of transformer models and we’ll soon transition to the personal computer era where these all run on your device, which Apple stands to benefit from the most. Their FoundationModels are actually pretty good at certain tasks
- Hammershaft 11mo ago
  I don't think that's obvious. The marginal return on additional units of compute seems to fall pretty quickly for the vast majority of applications, which increases the benefit of decentralization over the cost of reduced compute. It isn't clear the same is true of intelligence.
tptacek 11mo ago
There also seems to be a general vibe of cheerfulness among Apple fans about Dye's departure.
- trueno 11mo ago
  i don't really care about dye (or liquid glass) but i do feel like it's an alarm of sorts that Srouji stated he'd probably take off without tim cook at the helm. I dunno what that signals, i'm less inclined to think it's a "i just really like tim, man" and more of a "this incoming leadership can get bent". Apple also just picked up the meta lady that helped draft the patriot act. i dunno. What remains to be seen is whether or not Apple maintains its core tenets or if they start slipping on things like privacy, ads, and forcing AI in everyone's face. They undoubtedly leave a buttload of money on the table never pursuing these things. whole shakeup feels like it was driven by wall street earlier in the year, there were headlines about apple being in serious trouble for missing out on AI. I dunno feels like some game of thrones opportunism within apple leadership just played out. apple fans are dorks in that they think such a shakeup is in response to liquid glass and the iphone air being a boring phone. i like apple devices, this is kinda freaky i can't lie. it would actually suck if their chip division started stalling if srouji bounces, it would suck infinitely more if a new leadership was here to redefine apple values and suddenly we have a proverbial apple version of satya nadella at the helm who's here to blast you with ads and subscriptions and forced AI.

OhioMan2943 11mo ago

Isn't it obvious- we're hitting the limit of metrics of modern success/ end of this style of innovation- and are too uninventive to find new ones

jackvalentine 11mo ago

I don’t care that they’re behind on AI, I care that they’ve decided to throw UX out the window so all my devices are just a little bit worse to use than they were 12 months ago.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

dustbunny 11mo ago

When I lived in a different country, I could read as much cnn as I wanted. Now that I live in the USA, I need a subscription. So I am less informed on us politics now that I live in the USA. Ironic.

JSR_FDED 11mo ago

This is nothing, or at minimum a good thing. The people responsible for terrible UI and AI have gone.

mr_windfrog 11mo ago

Apple's ecosystem and business model are still rock solid. A few senior execs leaving is just a normal shake-up, not a crisis. Hardware's top-notch, and hopefully this opens the door for better UI and AI without messing with what already works.

tzury 11mo ago

I don't think this entire piece taught me anything new other than a speculation that "speculation is mounting that Tim Cook may be preparing to step aside as CEO" -- "speculation". "may be". "preparing". The lagging behind the AI wave is known, and matter of fact, the "Liquid Glass" saga is not even mentioned while they focus on the Apple Vision glasses. This is a great model for the poor low quality of journalism that became industry standard nowadays. Yes, apple direction is questionable, and while it is mainly questionable because the of AI wave, well, the entire AI wave is questionable nowadays. one more thing, the URL path has "/apple-tim-cook-leadership-changes" in it, suggests the title "what the heck" is most likely a newer version than the original one which they decided not to publish as is since it is not based enough. Bottom line: The template is: * [company] + [AI] + [speculation] + [analyst quote about urgency]. It produces volume, not insight.

3oil3 11mo ago

There were a lot of non-optimal decisions, and statements were out of reality. The macPro is not the best. The M3 slower. A.I. acronym opportunity could have been leveraged differently. A mac is supposed to be comfortable, macOS 26 "Da hoe" initially lacked various elements that were expected. The current state of logs/logging in macOS is a paradise for an adversary but time-hogging for legitimate user. Shareholders use macs, and they trust teams that studied Nokia. New emojis have a relatively inelastic relationship with sales.

CyberDildonics 11mo ago
Shareholders use macs, and they trust teams that studied Nokia. New emojis have a relatively inelastic relationship with sales. What does any of this mean?
- 3oil3 11mo ago
  What did you understand? Shareholders use macs -> proportionaly feel the same frustration as other mac users. Trusting teams that studied Nokia -> Nokia was once the leader in mobiles, and quickly fell. Emojis -> how many new emojis were added are usually indicated along the other, top, features.
  - astrange 11mo ago
    New emojis motivate people to install security updates.
- dagmx 11mo ago
  I’ve tried reading this a few times and it seems like a stream of consciousness word salad?
  - 3oil3 11mo ago
    It lost the formatting, I meant it as a list of what out-of-reality decisions led to. I mean the macPro sux, when the macbookproM3 came out it was slower than the previous mode. I meant that 'Apple-Inteligence' sux, that macOS26 doesn't help working better. That opening console on a fresh macOS can show thousands of entries per second and that entries like "User <private> result: <private>" are not helpful. That what happened to Nokia can happen to Iphones, and finally that listing emojis among top features is yet out-of-reality. And I didnt mention the vision pro because I wanted to make a joke about it, in case someone said I forgot that on my list.

protocolture 11mo ago

Windows 11 25H2 introduces several exciting new AI features. Its also being reported as a massive memory hog and its causing a lot of consternation online. There's no reason to be a first mover on AI. There's still no moat, and it is unlikely one will be found. A computer firm we have never heard of could spin up tomorrow and be the true leader of the much prophesied AI Revolution. Apple can let other people burn their brands to the ground chasing the dream. Colloquially, 2025 is the year of the linux desktop, thanks in part to Microsofts AI approach (And valve opening up games). In 10 years the ramifications of that might even be felt in enterprise. We could have enterprise users looking for Linux/MacOS clients to run Microsoft Office 365. Really one should be asking why Microsoft thinks it can ruin the client experience. "What the heck is going on at Microsoft". We know whats going on, no one in the upper echelons of Microsoft can be seen to ignore the next big thing. They are compelled to grasp at anything labelled AI and ship it. I dont like Apple, at all really. But not going all in on AI is to be lauded. In fact they could have done even less. Consumers want them to release the next iBrick with another 200 dollars attached to the pricetag. Thats it. They can meet consumer expectations by doing nothing other than Business as Usual.

kyledrake 11mo ago

Why does Apple need a different AI strategy? They make good laptops and people like them (I say this as someone that runs Linux on a framework laptop). Anyone using AI is using their MacBook laptops to use AI already. They're perfectly capable of running LLMs locally if anyone actually wants to do that. I'm not sure shoving a bunch of weird AI crap into the UI is actually what end users want.

jhancock 11mo ago
Because shareholders want "number go up". Would be nice to know why Apple didn't throw its war chest at the WarnerBros/HBO acquisition Netflix just did.
- Marsymars 11mo ago
  I’d guess a matter of control - Apple wants full control of the products and services that it owns and maintains - buying WB/HBO comes with a bunch of baggage around IP stewardship, international contracts around IP that restrict Apple in ways they’d never do with their own content, a ton of employees outside of the Apple corporate structure, etc.

crispyapple 11mo ago

Do they make Silicon Valley employee collector cards yet?

DonHopkins 10mo ago
Suck.com Net Moguls, from back in the day (art by Jay Bevenour, edited by Carl Steadman): https://web.archive.org/web/20181211075708/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/ https://web.archive.org/web/20181211075708/http://www.suck.c... Steve Jobs (front): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115101im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/96/11/15/cardfront.jpeg https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115101im_/http://www.suc... Steve Jobs (back): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143431im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/96/11/15/cardback.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143431im_/http://www.suc... Gil Amelio (front): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115107im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/97/03/14/cardfront.jpeg https://web.archive.org/web/20180802115107im_/http://www.suc... Gil Amelio (back): https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143436im_/http://www.suck.com/netmoguls/97/03/14/cardback.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20180802143436im_/http://www.suc... About Suck.com: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suck.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suck.com

HacklesRaised 11mo ago

Only Srouji would be a real loss. Not that they wouldn't feel the loss of the others, but more of a 'never mind' than an 'oh no'.

joduplessis 11mo ago

This is 100% needed, I'm sorry to say. Apple's hardware game has never been stronger - but software-wise they seem to be wandering around aimlessly. MacOS26 feels like a huge step back, so I'm hoping some fresh people will be a good thing.

ggm 11mo ago

Anyone recall IBM of the mainframe pre-PC days, and how different it was compared to post-redhat acquisition? If you'd told me in 1987 DEC was going to disappear up it's own fundament and be absorbed by Compaq, and then HP I would have laughed you off the floor. Or Sun be Oracle. And then Oracle try to morph into hyperscaler, and sort-of.. well existing Oracle customers aside, .. fail? Companies change. Nintendo was a 19th century playing card manufacturer. Kodak was a very innovative Photography related enterprise. Xerox invented the workstation. So tell me where Xerox is now? "Xerox Holdings"

SoftTalker 11mo ago
Yeah I don't think Apple will ever be an AI company. It's just not in their DNA. They do consumer computers. It's all they've ever really been good at. When they stray very far from that it doesn't go well.
astrange 11mo ago
> Nintendo was a 19th century playing card manufacturer. Still is one, just does other things too.

beloch 11mo ago

>The changes come as critics say Apple, once a tech leader, is behind in the next big wave: artificial intelligence. It might pay off to be a contrarian on AI or, at least, to appear that way. MS is currently facing significant user backlash against the AI components of Windows 11. Some of their own engineers have ripped management for forcing AI that's in a very poor state into every pore of the company's products while fixing that AI is verboten to all MS employees but the AI dept.[1]. Google is featuring frequently wrong AI summaries at the top of every search result. Elon Musk is using Grok to create his own version of reality in the form of Grokipedia, making billionaires everywhere look that much more like moustache-twirling villains. Even if you think LLM's have some solid applications and potential for growth, the way it's being pushed on average users is truly cringe-worthy. To make matters worse, there is broad public perception that AI is putting people out of work, ripping off artists, etc.. It might actually benefit a company like Apple to not feature AI prominently in their products, even if they do spend the resources to catch up. Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Apple fanboy trying to recast Apple being behind in AI into genius. I parted ways with Apple products over a decade ago due to bad experiences that I don't care to repeat. I'm just saying there could be an emerging niche for them to exploit. Being the one and only mainstream PC company that doesn't shove AI down people's throats could be a real competitive edge in 2026 and beyond. [1]https://jonready.com/blog/posts/everyone-in-seattle-hates-ai.html https://jonready.com/blog/posts/everyone-in-seattle-hates-ai...

HardCodedBias 11mo ago

Unless: 1) LLM advances stop 2) The Chinese companies release open source/weight models which are as good or better than the West 3) Apple somehow turns it around with AI Apple is done for. AI is going to be central to the next generation of phones and the next form factor. Their complete failure on AI has been ... shocking. Not sure if they don't have the data to train a leading edge model or if they have some kind of personele issue, it has just been shocking to see their lack of progress. No doubt Apple has rested on their laurels for a long time. I just would not have expected this.

pjmlp 11mo ago

In some ways it feels like the old 1990's Apple, except now they have enough money for all the misteps, and can survive being the iDevices company, which is where all that money is coming from. The Computer Company, not sure.

fmajid 11mo ago

They treat the departure of Alan Dye as a negative for Apple rather than the unalloyed win it is. That tells you everything you need to know about the credibility of the article.

OddMerlin 10mo ago

I recently purchased an iPad Air and am blown away at how bad the UX is. Notes is incredibly buggy, the iOS is not optimized for the pencil pro (seems like it delivers very little value outside of visual arts programs), the Siri +gpt experience is laughable, and I can go on… I’m a long time Apple user and I’m concerned with the state of things. Im considering returning this piece of junk.

SwtCyber 10mo ago
The iPad line in particular feels like the part of Apple's ecosystem that hasn't figured out what it wants to be
seec 10mo ago
Now that there are plenty of Chinese tablets that are excellent for the primary use case (media consumption) at a very good price for the hardware quality, iPads are definitely overpriced. And the "Pro" lineup fails to be a true laptop replacement. People buy them for the “cachet” or out of habit, but I think the situation is much worse than people think. The built-in obsolescence via software deprecation is also starting to bite them in the ass. If you cannot expect the tablet to last more than 6 years, there isn't much reason to buy Apple, considering competitors quality/performance is more than enough.

kotaKat 10mo ago

Maybe Apple should have focused more time onto the software and hardware and stopped trying so hard to be a media studio. Nobody asked for Ted Lasso, but a lot of us asked for Siri to do a little more than set a damn timer.

SwtCyber 10mo ago

Apple usually manages succession quietly and years in advance... seeing multiple senior people leave in the middle of an industry platform shift is unusual for a company that's spent two decades projecting stability